October 25, 2002 Student
News
To the men he served with, he was Richard Hastings
France; to me he is grandpa
From
the Hard News Cafe,
(10/23/02)
He probably didn't read the words printed on the side of the
food rations box that said, "For security, hide the empty
can and wrappers so that they cannot be seen." He had eaten
thousands of dehydrated meals from those boxes. Today would
be chicken, but he couldn't bring himself to eat it.
It was June 7, 1944, the day after D-Day, and he was sitting
on a tank with his head down and shoulders fallen, not able
to raise his eyes to look at the thousands of bodies that lay
cold on Utah beach on the shore of Normandy. He would later
describe the scene that lay before him saying, "There were
dead bodies everywhere, not a tree standing that had a leaf,
and the ships and beach had been blown to hell."
He was part of the 482nd Ordinance Evacuation Company. To the
U.S. government he was known by his serial number, 39-913-401;
to the handful of men he served with, he was Richard Hastings
France; but to me, he is Grandpa.
My grandpa and his company had been fixing 10 to 15 ships and
tanks per day for three months preparing for D-day, the battle
that would become the turning point of World War II. At 20 years
old, Grandpa was living a life he never could have anticipated.
Referring to that generation, Tom Brokaw said, "At a time
in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled
with innocent adventure, love and the lessons of the workaday
world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible
across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria
and the coral islands of the Pacific."
My grandpa's story is no different.
Sept. 1, 1939 is the date recorded as the first day of WWII,
but at that time Grandpa said he was a "weak boy that had
never left home." Even the attack on Pearl Harbor was too
early to interrupt his teen-age life. He recalls hearing news
of Pearl Harbor when he was sitting in a movie theater with
his friends in Centerville, Utah.
As Grandpa approached his 18th birthday and graduation from
high school, he also neared his impending registration and draft
to the war. He was not alone. Together with all of his cousins,
brothers and friends (75, to be exact), he reported to his local
draft board at Farmington, Utah, at 7 a.m. on the third day
of May, 1943. While there, he would sign his last will and testament,
leaving everything to his mother, Edna France.
From there, Grandpa's family and friends were scattered throughout
the world; His brother Charlie, his Uncle Jay, cousins and friends,
Don, Rex ... all 75. They would carry different weapons and
carry out different tasks. But the faces they saw carried the
same expressions of war.
There would be no more movie theaters of the kind he knew.
Instead, he would play a major role in the European Theater,
which meant he would spend the next three years in Europe fighting
on the Western battlefront against Hitler.
From Centerville, Grandpa went through basic training, which
included boot camp and a series of tests that would determine
each soldier's call to duty. He received the highest overall
mechanical and engineering scores at Fort Knox, Tenn., which
resulted in a call that would put him within 20 miles of the
front line for the rest of the war.
Because of his skills, Grandpa was trained to fix and drive
all land equipment used in combat, including tanks. His responsibility
was to fix tanks and deliver them to front lines, where he would
retrieve and evacuate broken ones. This took him through what
he called a lifetime of horrors and hardships.
Though the task was the same, the locations were always different.
Grandpa started in Bristol, England, where he prepared for D-day,
which granted him the call to Paris the day it was liberated.
While in Paris, Grandpa recalled a woman coming toward him
and placing a French franc in his hand, her way of thanking
him for his bravery and service. From that day, Grandpa made
a coin and bill collection of all of the places he fought, feeling
they represented the people he was fighting for. By the end
of the war, he would have a tin full of bills, coins and stamps
from Europe.
After his service in Paris, Grandpa followed a difficult path
through Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Germany where he continued
to shoot machine guns, drive tanks over land mines, build bridges
called "pontoons" and see more people die.
When asked if he had friends, Grandpa said, "Making friends
only put me in the position to lose them. You learn quick that
you don't make friends during war, because they all die."
However, the war afforded Grandpa the opportunity to meet and
lose many people he cared for. This was the case for most everyone
involved in WWII. From the 28 countries that participated in
the war, there were 20 million military casualties of war, not
including civilians. Grandpa was one of 13 million military
persons that were wounded but not killed in WWII. He said he
considers himself lucky among men and women that served in the
war.
Generally, soldiers were given "points" for a variety
of things; five points for each wound sustained, five points
for each battle fought, and points for each presidential citation
and campaign star for bravery (which included metals and ribbons).
As a general rule, a soldier would be discharged after 35 points.
However, by the end of WWII, Grandpa had attained over 100 points.
But Grandpa's points and travels all became insignificant when
Grandpa boarded a ship to head home in 1946. Three weeks later,
he would walk, unannounced, through the back door of his house
in Centerville, for what would be the best surprise his father
would recall in his lifetime.
During the 60 years that have since passed, France has fought
with flashbacks and infirmities.
But he holds neither grudge nor guilt. It is no coincidence
that his entire generation shares the same sentiment. In fact,
France's generation holds a patriotism that cannot be imitated.
They fought through hell, lost best friends, suffered sickness
and sacrificed all personal desires in the name of freedom.
And they are not angry.
"They answered the call to save the world from the two
most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled,
instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs,"
Brokaw said. "They faced great odds and a late start, but
they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won
the war; they saved the world."
Richard France truly is part of what's been called "the
greatest generation."
For more information visit www.skalman.nu/worldwar2/links.htm.
By Mykel France
Photo courtesy Mykel France
utah
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